Creating Custom Skins for Individuals (Specifically Children)

[Skipperdoo32]

I'll make this brief. I just want to mod the skins of three children in Skyrim: Braith, Kayd, and Adara. They're all Redguard, and I know it seems trivial, but they're all pale as ghosts and look nothing like their parents, and it just baffles me to no end.

 

I extracted textures.bsa and was looking through all the files, but from what I've seen my fears were correct and all children use the exact same skin textures, regardless of race or gender.

 

Changing the texture in Photoshop will be a snap. No mesh changes, nothing fancy. All I want to do is a recolour. But how do I assign it specifically to those three kids?

 

I'm aware that there are mods like RS Children, Skyrim Children Overhaul, etc. that already modify the children's appearances, but I don't want fancy new meshes or changes to the other children. Just a simple recolour of the three I mentioned (might be nice to give Lars Battle-born some blonde hair, while I'm at it).

 

 

 

 

I used to do a lot of modding for The Sims 2, but from what I've already seen Skyrim is most definitely a lot more complex. Can anyone more experienced with this offer me some advice? I've been looking everywhere for info on how to do this and so far I'm still pretty lost.

[amakachao]

Hello! All you want to do is change the appearance of 3 npcs? Okay! I learned how to do it here. You will have to skip to step 3 because you cannot create children's faces in RaceMenu unless you have a "playable children" mod like RSChildren.

 

Open the Creation Kit. File> Data> Double click Skryim, OKAY! Then YES TO ALL when you get errors, the errors mean nothing (at least the error before you've even edited anything)! In the Object Window > Actors >Actor> find your NPC! Double click Braith! In the tabs that comes up go to Character Gen Parts. You should have two check boxes "Preview ()Full ()Head" Check the Head box, Braith's head is now showing! In the Face Tinting Color select your color! You can also change the hair from here! Click OKAY! Now SAVE! It should have taken you right to your Skyrim Data folder (where other .esp files are) Save it as something like RedguardChildren.esp. GREAT! Now do the same for the other two children. Remember to save a lot!

 

If you use Nexus Mod Manager, open that up and make sure your plugin (aka your .esp file) is checked. Start your game. Go to up to the children, are they darker/have different hair? If YES, then you are successful!

 

Be sure not change anything else because each child is unique and some have quests attached. Don't worry, if you mess up, you can't permanently change Skyrim, all you are doing is layering visual changes over Skyrim's base. So if you don't like it, quit your game, open up NMM, disable your plugin, remove it from your Data folder.

 

Want to make more changes/make them even darker? okay here's how.

 

Open Creation Kit, INSTEAD OF SKYRIM as your Data file, double click your .esp. This will load your previous work AS WELL AS the Skyrim file. Make your changes, SAVE OFTEN!

 

Would you like to release your work on the nexus? Make sure you clean it with Tes5edit... there are other tutorials that will teach you this and how to upload a nice clean safe file for everyone to enjoy.

 

I use RS Children and the Redguard children look very good, I am very happy with their appearance because the pale Redguard children also bugged me. They are darker and have appropriate hair.

 

For what you request I recommend RUSTIC CHILDREN this will keep the children looking exactly like they currently do, only less like playdoh/potato. This will not change mesh/model, only the textures and normal maps (aka bump maps, how bumpy or smooth something is). Therefore Rustic Children is the MOST COMPATIBLE mod with everything else in your game. I wanted something more (play as a kid/ have a kid follower) which is why I went with RSChildren but these are very good too. I didn't check on the Redguard children when I had "Rustic Children" installed so I couldn't tell you if the pale Redguard children were fixed or not.

 

If Rustic Children does not fix the pale Redguard children then you can do all that I said and the changes will still take affect with the new "look" that Rustic Children creates.

Edited February 22, 2016 by amakachao